Eurotunnel

Lord Birt Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, my noble friend asks about sufficient supplies of medicines. I can confirm that we are working closely with pharmaceutical companies to ensure that patients can continue to receive the medicines they need. As I said before, we are confident that the supply of medicines will be uninterrupted in the event of no deal. In addition to extra warehouse space, as a first line of defence industries have been asked to ensure a minimum of six weeks’ additional supply in the UK for prescription-only and pharmacy medicines—over and above existing, business-as-usual buffer stocks—by 29 March 2019.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that the clear implication of this settlement with Eurotunnel is that the original procurement was unlawful? What legal advice on the conduct of the procurement was sought at the time? Was that legal advice ignored?

[The Earl of Courtown]

No, the legal advice was not ignored. As I said earlier, the legal advice we were given was in line with the expedited form of contract competition that we entered into.